The invention is suitable for a remotely readable meter device, such as a meter device that measures the consumption of a q such as electricity, gas, heat, water, etc. and reports measurements to a central system via a communication network. Such meter devices may e.g. transmit data about the consumption or status of the meter device via the network at regular intervals or when receiving an initiating signal. The collection of data from the meter device may be done by a stationary network such as stationary antennas or by a mobile network comprising means for receiving data and means for storing or for transmitting data further, e.g. to a main location of the utility network system.
The power source of remotely readable meter devices may be a battery, at least for commutating data. As one of the advantages of remotely readable meter devices is that they do not require on the spot service but can be read out remotely, it is important that such batteries have a sufficiently long lifetime, and therefore do not require service in the form of an unnecessary battery change.
When a remotely readable meter device is communicating with a network by sending a data telegram according to a certain communication protocol, there are certain requirements to the communication protocol, i.e. to the contents of the data telegram. Such requirements may comprise at least establishment of synchronization between the sender and the receiver, identification of the meter, a checksum value for verification of the sent data, and a data field, which contains information about the consumption, operation, or status relating to the meter device. Furthermore, the protocol will usually contain more information, such as timing information, information about the length of the data telegram, information about the formatting of the data of the data field, information about the data fields, such as information about which quantity is measured, the unit it is measured in etc. The ratio between the actual information about the consumption, operation, or status, such as number and/or status bytes, and information that either does not relate directly to consumption, operation, or status, such as information about timing or information about measuring units, may be rather low. I.e. the numbers telling about the consumption, operation, or status may constitute a rather small amount of data compared to the full data telegram.
It is known from EP 2088706 that when a meter device communicates a consumed quantity to a utility system by means of an MBUS data string including an identification of the meter, data record headers may be omitted. By using a checksum calculated over the full MBUS string including the data headers and including this checksum in the communication, the validity of the data record header assumed by the utility system may be tested.